Slashdot Mirror

No, the person you responded to is correct. Bail cost is set based on flight risk and severity of crime. This person was caught while attempting to leave the country. He also has disposable IDs.

The death sentence in California is not a real concern. The last person the state of California officially put to death was over 10 years ago.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/n...

Undoing moderation to say this, but it has to be said. Unless you are naive enough to believe that the U.S. justice system works 100% of the time in capitol cases and always gets the right man, a death penalty by necessity kills innocent people some percentage of the time. Killing innocents is immoral and unwarranted, and by your own terms, murder.

Now some people may be ok with a "small" number of innocent people being killed for no reason, I am not. Supposedly about 1 in 20, subject to locality. I wish I could find a link but I saw an interview with the former pro-death penalty D.A. of chicago who's mind was changed when a DNA evidence review law was passed and almost half of death row inmates were exonerated. (I hope I am not mis remembering details there).

In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.

As I said, mistakes are made. I don't know what percentage of death-row inmates are eventually cleared. You realize it normally takes decades between a conviction and an execution to allow proper appeals? A conviction in the US does not mean 100% absolute certainty, just "beyond a reasonable doubt." I have not argued for or against capital punishment in this thread because it is too nuanced. The lawful execution of someone convicted of a capital offense but posthumously found not guilty is classified as "wrongful death" and not "murder".

According to DeathPenalty.info, 162 death row inmates have been acquitted, had their charges dropped, or received a "complete pardon based on evidence of innocence" since 1973. DNA was a factor in 20 of these cases.

A report from 2014 which looked at convicted death row inmates from 1973 to 2004 found that 1.6% were exonerated; another 35% were "spared from capital punishment, but remained incarcerated".

* It deters as surely as lesser punishments deter, like incarceration or fines. Charts of death penalty vs. murder rate in the US underscore this point. It's curious to assert that lesser punishments deter, but the harshest does not.

I'm not aware of any country where the punisment for murder is a fine. But I did do a search for "death penalty vs. murder rate in the US" and most hits I got do not underscore your point. This shows that you can pick an expert who supports either side of the debate. It seems that if you look at the effect of an execution on murder rates following that execution you find a strong correlation, and if you look at the overall murder rate you find that murder rates are higher in death penalty states.

Perhaps there is a cultural factor. I can imagine that a culture that has a low threshold for killing both has a high murder rate and a strong support for death penalties, and a culture with a high threshold for killing has a low murder rate and a strong opposition against death penalties.

If a 14-yo wants to be declared legally independent of his or her parents, I don't think most people would have a problem with it as long as he also became financially and criminally responsible for all his deeds as if he were an adult.

That is a bullshit strawman. Execution of juveniles in the US and other countries. Juveniles Life Without Parole Clearly large parts of the US are willing to convict a minor of heinous crimes. It is not a binary that once you reach 18 you're fully responsible and accountable for your actions and before that your parents are. So, yes, if a minor becomes emancipated they can obtain full legal responsibility for themselves, but obviously no, it's not a requirement to be emancipated to hold certain sub-18 ages to some degree of responsibility and hence to respect their rights.

Unfortunately, the way most [people] want it is that they get all the rights of an adult, but [someone else] still have to bear all the responsibility (including paying for food, clothing, and shelter).

Fixed that for you. And also, irrelevant to how legally they're treated. Germany just seems to recognize that it's better to start handing over degrees of autonomy and responsibility to will-be-adults. Crazy, eh?

Look at capital punishment versus life imprisonment as a deterrent to murder, if you will... hardly any homicide in Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi.

I'm not sure where you're going with that, but the phrase you quoted argues against your position.

Put them in jail instead.

It's cheaper and a wrongful conviction can be reversed.

The majority of countries no longer have the death penalty.

Executions have never been "cruel and unusual".

Wrong.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

Funny thing, poll taxes were a Democrat invention. Trying to claim that requiring an ID to vote is the same is lying, sophistry at best.

Which were outlawed in 1964, and brought back by the GOP starting in 2010.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

Seriously? When have Republicans EVER attempted to prevent someone older than 18 from voting because of their age?

Started in 2008, and accelerated in 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12...

You could have easily checked these things for yourself before posting.

You're 100% correct in your point about rape investigations, like all criminal investigations, should be a job for actual police and courts with a responsibility to protect the right of the (potentially falsely) accused.

However,

In some states, rape is a capital crime, punishable by death in the US.

is wrong. The only capital crime under any state law is murder. There's a few others at the Federal level (treason and the like), but rape isn't punishable by death anywhere in the United States.

According to this, you're incorrect.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

Explain to me why you're not interested in investigating or reforming the legal practices that lead to false convictions but are only interested in the frankly trite repetition of talking points that do nothing to address underlying problems?

That is what you're doing.

That isn't an ad hominem. If your dick is inside a sheep... I am not laying out an ad hominem by calling you a sheep fucker. That's a description of what is happening.

I looked at your argument and noted what you were doing. Then cited you for doing it. That's not ad hominem.

Ad hominem is "you're wrong because you're stupid" or "you're wrong because you're a sheep fucker".

What I said was "You seem to be doing X which undermines the intent of your argument for Y."

I also pointed out that the underlying problem with Y is that there are issues with X. I pointed out that removing Y does not address X and that if you could fix X then Y would naturally be fixed as well.

So I ask again, why are you fixated on the death penality issue and not on general miscarrages of justice?

Maybe this will help... lets look at a specific case. I'll do all the research for you.

First thing I found on wikipedia since 2010:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

So apparently his defense do a good enough job of questioning evidence at the trial.

Whether the guy is actually innocent or not is... somewhat murky here. Was he convicted on trumped up evidence? Possibly... also possibly he got off on a technicality.

Next citation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Clearly we have a case of improper interrogations leading to a questionable confession. We could reform that quite easily.

http://www.local10.com/news/No...

This one involves video evidence of the execution style killing of three bound people. The other person on the video is still on death row since it is less controversal that he did it. That said, why it is controversal that the other man is or is not this other fellow is not obvious to me.

For one thing we should be seeing secondary evidence such as blood or powder residue or something. I know that is something of a CSI answer but this is the 21st century and I'd like to see that.

The details are not obvious here. I'd have to look into this case more. It is possible that he got off on a technicality or just retried his case until the jury found him innocent. I don't know.

One thing I'm starting to suspect is that many of the over turned convictions are themselves in error. I wouldn't say that in all or even most of them but I've seen two now that don't sound right.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

So there are issues with rewarding informants and disclosing the context of state evidence.

See how fucking easy this is?

We just go through all these and instead of focusing on the execution, we focus on what actually went wrong. Its far more productive and much more interesting.

NEXT CASE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Alright, this one has another defense lawyer that is apparently incompetent. So this is something you can bring to the law schools and the bar associations and say "hey, the quality of lawyers you're sending into the system has to be improved in this context."

And beyond that we have a witness that lied... and some more nonsense from the prosecutors fucking with the ev

Explain to me why you're not interested in investigating or reforming the legal practices that lead to false convictions but are only interested in the frankly trite repetition of talking points that do nothing to address underlying problems?

That is what you're doing.

That isn't an ad hominem. If your dick is inside a sheep... I am not laying out an ad hominem by calling you a sheep fucker. That's a description of what is happening.

I looked at your argument and noted what you were doing. Then cited you for doing it. That's not ad hominem.

Ad hominem is "you're wrong because you're stupid" or "you're wrong because you're a sheep fucker".

What I said was "You seem to be doing X which undermines the intent of your argument for Y."

I also pointed out that the underlying problem with Y is that there are issues with X. I pointed out that removing Y does not address X and that if you could fix X then Y would naturally be fixed as well.

So I ask again, why are you fixated on the death penality issue and not on general miscarrages of justice?

Maybe this will help... lets look at a specific case. I'll do all the research for you.

First thing I found on wikipedia since 2010:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

So apparently his defense do a good enough job of questioning evidence at the trial.

Whether the guy is actually innocent or not is... somewhat murky here. Was he convicted on trumped up evidence? Possibly... also possibly he got off on a technicality.

Next citation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Clearly we have a case of improper interrogations leading to a questionable confession. We could reform that quite easily.

http://www.local10.com/news/No...

This one involves video evidence of the execution style killing of three bound people. The other person on the video is still on death row since it is less controversal that he did it. That said, why it is controversal that the other man is or is not this other fellow is not obvious to me.

For one thing we should be seeing secondary evidence such as blood or powder residue or something. I know that is something of a CSI answer but this is the 21st century and I'd like to see that.

The details are not obvious here. I'd have to look into this case more. It is possible that he got off on a technicality or just retried his case until the jury found him innocent. I don't know.

One thing I'm starting to suspect is that many of the over turned convictions are themselves in error. I wouldn't say that in all or even most of them but I've seen two now that don't sound right.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

So there are issues with rewarding informants and disclosing the context of state evidence.

See how fucking easy this is?

We just go through all these and instead of focusing on the execution, we focus on what actually went wrong. Its far more productive and much more interesting.

NEXT CASE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Alright, this one has another defense lawyer that is apparently incompetent. So this is something you can bring to the law schools and the bar associations and say "hey, the quality of lawyers you're sending into the system has to be improved in this context."

And beyond that we have a witness that lied... and some more nonsense from the prosecutors fucking with the ev

Slapping him in maximum security prison for life with no chance of parole might as well be death, but is something like 1/10th as expensive as execution.

The economic argument against the death penalty doesn't work when you compare the state and federal systems. It would be trivially easy to dispose of the federal death row inmate if anyone really wanted to do it.

The number of federal prisoners on death row is 61.

27 are on death row for crimes committed in Texas, Missouri and Virginia. 2 for crimes committed in California. Federal Death Row Prisoners [March 24]

The number of California prisoners on death row is 743. Death Row Inmates by State and Size of Death Row by Year [January 1]

Slapping him in maximum security prison for life with no chance of parole might as well be death, but is something like 1/10th as expensive as execution.

The economic argument against the death penalty doesn't work when you compare the state and federal systems. It would be trivially easy to dispose of the federal death row inmate if anyone really wanted to do it.

The number of federal prisoners on death row is 61.

27 are on death row for crimes committed in Texas, Missouri and Virginia. 2 for crimes committed in California. Federal Death Row Prisoners [March 24]

The number of California prisoners on death row is 743. Death Row Inmates by State and Size of Death Row by Year [January 1]

The death penalty is not an effective deterrent against murder.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-...

What deters murderers is not the penalty, but the likelihood of being caught.

Actually, what deters murders most is not having a gun.

The death penalty is not an effective deterrent against murder.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-...

What deters murderers is not the penalty, but the likelihood of being caught.

Now, do you have statistics to back up your implication, that in real life police are more often wrong than right?

No, but the consequences of real life police being wrong are pretty fucking serious. And they're wrong a lot more often than people care to admit.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

Put them in jail instead.

It's cheaper

I had a quick read but couldn't find anywhere where it concluded it was cheaper. Trials were cheaper, and incarceration costs cheaper, I accept that, but I couldn't see the most important part where a quick execution means decades fewer incarceration costs? I also missed the part where the person by remaining alive re-offends. What is the cost of that? (not all lifers stay inside for life)
I agree we need to improve the standard for getting it right, although this seems to be a problem with the US judicial system than anywhere else.

Killing people diminishes us - even if they were evil scumbags who deserved worse. I don't need to look to other cultures for examples and counter-examples of executing people. I don't need a popularity contest about how many other people don't like the death penalty (or the converse). Let's just go with "no killing" because it is right and be done with it.

I agree completely. I just thought I'd start the thread with the pragmatic reasons, because they tend to make proponents less defensive. And that reminds me of another one: the lack of evidence that it is an effective deterrent compared to incarceration:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-...

Put them in jail instead.

It's cheaper and a wrongful conviction can be reversed.

The majority of countries no longer have the death penalty.

Well this is the issue isn't it... how do you know if the person was guilty or not? the 4% you cite are the ones who actually got justice after serving long prison terms... it doesn't count the people still in prison but innocent, nor the ones executed.

If they were trialed and convicted, made it through the appeals process, DNA evidence, and witnesses and so on and still on death row, I'm satisfied enough in their guilt. But we are not talking about people still in prison, just people on death row. There is a very high standard for being sentenced to death and an elaborate appeals process that takes a very liberal approach.

f you kill someone then you deserve to get the death penalty right? well if the state (you, me, and everyone who does nothing to change the death penalty law thereby accepting them) executes an innocent man, that's murder and you deserve the death penalty.

Nope. It would be whomever lied in court to convict the prisoner. We do not just flip a coin and say you need to die. Some people might like that but it just does not happen unless the cops kill someone (there have been more unarmed people killed by cops since 1999 than claimed innocent people executed).

Even at 4% it's certain we are executing innocent men... and we're all to blame.. why do we get to murder and not pay the price we demand of those we put to death?

Like I said, it would be whomever lied in court. If they are convicted and no one lied, it would be accidental just like you crashing your car after sliding on ice and killing someone. But those instances are rare, the bar for a capitol punishment case is high and the death sentence would most likely be withheld without someone lieing or manufacturing evidence.

especially because it costs less to house a man till he dies (and this allows the opportunity to eventually free him if innocent)!!!!!

Actually, if you are not on death row, you are less likely to be set free because less resources are devoted to appeals and process for prisoners not on death row. If you are on death row, one of the reasons it costs so much more is because they do so much more to ensure you are not the innocent person you claim to be. Regular prisoners do not get this extra attention.

Lol.. Do you think saying "fuck" adds depth of meaning to your words?

I have better odds of making rich by hitting the lottery than I do of being incorrectly put to death by capitol punishment. There were 699,000 or so murders since 1976 when the death penalty numbers can be tracked. There has been 1379 executions in that time span which means less than two tenths of one percent where executed. Furthermore, there are 3035 death row inmates, if we add the already executed of 1379, it comes to a little over six tenths of one percent of all murders over a 4 decade period of time results in a death penalty. Assuming a 318 million population level and an average murder rate per year, I had a little over five thousands of one percent chance of even being charged with one of those murders. Of course that number is flawed because the population is not static but I'm much more likely to be murdered by someone than to be executed for a murder I did not commit.

It's too insignificant to be overly concerned about it as far as I can tell.

The problem is that it costs the state more to kill someone than it does to fund the rest of their lives in a box.

It is more worthwhile to spend money giving someone better chance to prove their innocence, than to spend it keeping them in a box til they die.

Least humane way to execute someone:
Put them in a box till they die, funded by money that could have been spent saving lives.

The problem is that it costs the state more to kill someone than it does to fund the rest of their lives in a box.

Hilarious.

http://ago.mo.gov/VehicleStops...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep...

There's more, there's so much more! There's so much more it kind of drives me insane! I could list hundreds of links! Educational opportunities, health outcomes, workplace advancement, legal mistreatment, housing discrimination, homeland security - name an institution where you think black women are outclassing white men, name one, and I will throw it back in your face so freaking fast.

That being said, who is eliminating the death penalty going to save money?

The cost of an actual execution is nothing. The costs for death penalty is focused on court costs, which is part of why if I'm charged when actually innocent I'd almost rather have a death penalty case - I think that the extra attention means that the truth is more likely to come out. Second is that holding a prisoner on death row tends to cost twice as much per year. So 20-30 years on death row equates to 40-60 years in the general population* AND you have drastically increased court costs, easily adding up to more than enough to keep the prisoner for life.

*Not always true/possible. Some LIP convicts will cost more as well due to special handling requirements**
**Just because the average Life in prison sentence is cheaper than the average execution sentence, doesn't mean exceptions wouldn't exist. An 18 year old violent psychopath might be so dangerous he has to stay in solitary at all times anyways and be young enough to have lots of time in prison for costs to add up.

Baldus and Woodworth answered a lot of your questions. Case-controlled studies are never perfect, but they're the best evidence we have.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

Two of the country's foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along with colleagues in Philadelphia, have conducted a careful analysis of race and the death penalty in Philadelphia which reveals that the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black. These results were obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in excess of other defendants for similar crimes....

Another measure of race's impact on the death penalty is the combined effect of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed. Black-on-black crimes were less likely to receive a death sentence, followed by crimes by other defendants, regardless of the race of their victims.

I guess that Americans are lower than savages. Savages rarely killed to defend themselves from the white men who stole their lands, white men who gave them alcohol, and stole their wives, white men who killed their children, white men who gave them diseases. Ever so rarely did they kill for revenge, but good Christian believers believe in revenge by death.

Mistakes are never made.

People certainly thought those guys deserved the "ultimate" penalty for what they did.

Further, appeals to emotion such as yours above are exactly why we shouldn't have a death penalty. I don't care what someone did, at the very worst we should lock them away, not kill them.

Baldus and Woodworth answered a lot of your questions. Case-controlled studies are never perfect, but they're the best evidence we have.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

Two of the country's foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along with colleagues in Philadelphia, have conducted a careful analysis of race and the death penalty in Philadelphia which reveals that the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black. These results were obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in excess of other defendants for similar crimes....

Another measure of race's impact on the death penalty is the combined effect of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of how severe the murder committed. Black-on-black crimes were less likely to receive a death sentence, followed by crimes by other defendants, regardless of the race of their victims.

theres only been 1300 or so executions since 76 in a land of 400 million. Id say that we dont have too many executions in this country http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

On what data are you basing your statement? I thought it was interesting, but wanted to verify. Google search: "statistics death row executions race"

First result:
Race of death row inmates executed since 1976 (US).

Comparing the percentage of executions by race to the population data shown lower on the page, I don't think your statement is correct. More whites are executed, but more blacks have pending executions.

Why does the US still even have the Death penalty?

Michigan abolished the depth penalty in 1846, Wisconsin in 1853. States With and Without the Death Penalty

Oklahoma law includes a fall-back to execution by electrocution or firing squad if lethal injection is found unconstitutional. State by State Database

As of October 31, 2010:

men account for 98.3 percent (3206) of the persons currently on death row, while women account for 1.7 percent (55).
men account for 99 percent (1220) of the persons executed in recent years, while women account for 1.0 percent (12)

From the same page, a fascinating look at the last executions solely for crimes other than homicide The last women to be executed for a crime other than homicide were Hannah Piggen in 1785 and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953.

Why does the US still even have the Death penalty?

Michigan abolished the depth penalty in 1846, Wisconsin in 1853. States With and Without the Death Penalty

Oklahoma law includes a fall-back to execution by electrocution or firing squad if lethal injection is found unconstitutional. State by State Database

As of October 31, 2010:

men account for 98.3 percent (3206) of the persons currently on death row, while women account for 1.7 percent (55).
men account for 99 percent (1220) of the persons executed in recent years, while women account for 1.0 percent (12)

From the same page, a fascinating look at the last executions solely for crimes other than homicide The last women to be executed for a crime other than homicide were Hannah Piggen in 1785 and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953.

We have to pay for this monster to live for the rest of his life. We *all* pay taxes for that. It's expensive.

And carrying out a death penalty also has it's costs. Take a read of costs death penalty. (I may be cherry picking a bit here but) From that article it was estimated that California could save $170 million a year by commuting al death sentences to life in prison.

So do you want to pay more or less taxes?

So, you mean a state like Texas - loose gun control - with a 2012 murder rate of 4.4 (per 100,000 people) versus a state like New York - tight gun control - with a rate of 3.5? Which is the lower number? See http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or... . Better yet, look at the ranking by murder rate -
and tell me if you think the top of the list - the high murder-rate states - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Michigan, South Carolina, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, and Arkansas - sounds like a bunch of states with tight gun control laws?

But we'll be damned if we're going to let a little setback keep us from letting the state put its subjects to death, damn it!

2014 and we're still doing this. Even in the face of acknowledging that 15-20% of inmates are likely innocent and that many death row inmates have likely been innocent and that a lot of those actually executed have likely been innocent. No matter how barbaric one's attitude on "kill the guilty", nobody can defend a system that needlessly kills innocent people (yes, incarcerating an innocent person for life is shit, too, but at least if you don't execute inmates, you don't run the risks of murdering innocent men). To ignore all of this seems contrary to the entire fundamental construct of our society.

And in anticipation of the "oh yeah, sure innocent people have been put on death row" bullshit, here are 143 of them *proven* innocent and *exonerated* in just the last 40 years.: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

Money's a bad consideration. Death Row inmates cost more than regular life-sentence inmates to house.

The argument is somewhat circular, because death-penalty opponents have made it so expensive. I'm not against all of the additional costs, mind you, in this day and age we ought to be damn sure we're executing the right person.

Money's a bad consideration. Death Row inmates cost more than regular life-sentence inmates to house.

Read a bit
While 240 months is probably above the average wait time, the average wait time as of 2010 was 178 months. Just under 15 years. There are various reasons for the excessive delays, some good (using modern science to disprove lie-witness accounts), some less defensible, but the annoying fact is that just because there is a right to a speedy trial does not mean there is any legal insistence on a speedy application of the sentence.

The per-capita homicide rate in NYC is actually lower than in any other major city in the USA, barely above the national average.

Chicago roughly comparable to Atlanta... and even Detroit is still safer than New Orleans. You can argue the reasons, but you can't argue that the deep south has more than its share of social problems.

In China and Iran, this is probably true.

In the USA, it is provably false: the entire process of a death sentence is more expensive than life imprisonment due to a more complicated process and more (mandatory?) appeals. The average time between sentencing and execution is now 15 years, so you are feeding, housing, and guarding them for probably around a third of their natural time left anyway.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

And this is when you tell them that 300 people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence, which is a pretty big number when the total death row inmates this year is around 3000 (3146 in 2012). That's right, about 10% who were able to be cleared of guilt using one technique that may not have been around when they were convicted, and who were actually tested through the persistence of their legal advocates. Doubtless more could be exonerated if routine DNA checks were done on people convicted before DNA testing was possible or commonplace. "But what about all the people who were executed," they say. "What about those? Surely that reduces that percentage by some significant amount." Not really. About 1000 have been executed in the last 20 years. (1316 to be exact.) So, worst-case scenario, we're looking at about 6.7% exoneration rates. By one kind of evidence. In a society where the majority don't seem to want to try very hard to exonerate them.

With numbers like those, I'm not too interested in being the one to end a person's life based on their supposed crimes. Even if I could guarantee the person was guilty before execution was an option, I don't think there is any benefit to society.

Of course, I'm also not interested in condoning prison rape and other things that are routine. This probably puts me in the minority - most seem to think it's their just desserts. Personally, I'd love to see a prisoner make a constitutional claim that the government is engaging in cruel and unusual punishment by condoning such acts through the expedient of simply looking the other way. But, again, that doesn't support the sense of vengeance that so many seem to be driven by.

Death Row Inmates by Year

Executions by Year

300th Person Exonerated, approx. Oct. 2012

And this is when you tell them that 300 people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence, which is a pretty big number when the total death row inmates this year is around 3000 (3146 in 2012). That's right, about 10% who were able to be cleared of guilt using one technique that may not have been around when they were convicted, and who were actually tested through the persistence of their legal advocates. Doubtless more could be exonerated if routine DNA checks were done on people convicted before DNA testing was possible or commonplace. "But what about all the people who were executed," they say. "What about those? Surely that reduces that percentage by some significant amount." Not really. About 1000 have been executed in the last 20 years. (1316 to be exact.) So, worst-case scenario, we're looking at about 6.7% exoneration rates. By one kind of evidence. In a society where the majority don't seem to want to try very hard to exonerate them.

With numbers like those, I'm not too interested in being the one to end a person's life based on their supposed crimes. Even if I could guarantee the person was guilty before execution was an option, I don't think there is any benefit to society.

Of course, I'm also not interested in condoning prison rape and other things that are routine. This probably puts me in the minority - most seem to think it's their just desserts. Personally, I'd love to see a prisoner make a constitutional claim that the government is engaging in cruel and unusual punishment by condoning such acts through the expedient of simply looking the other way. But, again, that doesn't support the sense of vengeance that so many seem to be driven by.

Death Row Inmates by Year

Executions by Year

300th Person Exonerated, approx. Oct. 2012

Except, at least in the US, it is not necessarily cheaper to execute someone that to imprison them for life. Life without parole (LWOP) cases can cost more depending on how long the individual is imprisoned. However, it's really hard to know the true cost of either as there are different knock on costs from each type.

In the LWOP cases if the person receiving the sentence is really young then it will likely cost roughly between $1-$3 million to imprison that person for the rest of their lives. However, in California's recent past it was determined that executions cost about $3 million per execution. Some might argue that California wasn't very efficient at execution, unlike Texas, but the price for executions in Texas is comparable.

It's actually quite difficult to figure out the actual cost, but we do know a few details to help reason through the costs. Due to the legal system in the US we allow those sentenced to death to exhaust all legal appeal options before the execution. This means many more days in court than the LWOP (roughly 5-6 times as many court appearances).

A quick googling shows some stats (some with deeper links to actual studies):
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

This is a great point. The economic benefit of killing humans should definitely outweigh the right to life. Oh, except that it costs quite a bit more for us to kill people than to simply incarcerate them with no chance of parole. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty " Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year. The cost of the present system with reforms recommended by the Commission to ensure a fair process would be $232.7 million per year. The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year. The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year."

Though the practice is not uniform, many (most?) U.S. states require that, if a death sentence is to be imposed, that it be imposed by a jury. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/us-supreme-court-ring-v-arizona But I agree that this is mostly irrelevant to your point.

According to http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ 2013 thus far has seen 32 executions, and 2012 saw 43 executions. How in the world could less than 50 a year cause a problem for millions of patients? I'd think it would be the other way around...

and let me add....he's 15. a minor. charges? wtf is this country coming to that even kids are now criminals?! WTF AMERICA??

Children of "tender years" might have escaped prosecution. But that is and always has been close kin to the little loved insanity defense. Too young to control his actions. Too young to understand the consequences of his actions.

The adolescent is a work-in-progress. He is not an infant.

The first execution of a juvenile offender was in 1642 with Thomas Graunger in Plymouth Colony, Massachesetts. In the 360 years since that time, a total of approximately 365 persons have been executed for juvenile crimes, constituting 1.8% of roughly 20,000 confirmed American executions since 1608. Twenty-two of these executions for juvenile crimes have been imposed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. These 22 recent executions of juvenile offenders make up about 2% of the total executions since 1976.

The death penalty is forbidden in all states for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime following the Supreme Court's ruling in Roper v. Simmons (2005)

Execution of Juveniles in the U.S. and other Countries

Supreme Court rules mandatory juvenile life without parole cruel and unusual (2012)

As long as he gets a fair trial (and by fair I mean a death sentence) [...]

You'd love North Korea's justice system; it is the epitome of "fair" by your twisted standard. Fortunately, most civilized societies have not only abolished the states' power to kill their own people, they enjoy lower murder rates as well.

Keeping them alive makes the rest of us pay for it...

That's just stupid.

You want him kept alive forever? YOU pay for it... I'd rather pay $.005 for a bullet and be done with it.

You are an idiot.

Please stop talking until you learn something about the topic.

There is no almost certain chance it will never actually happen. Over 3/4 of people sentenced to death row are actually executed eventually. Most criminals newly arrived on death row rate their chances of eventually being executed at less than 1%, despite the actually figures.
                The typical person who gets the death penalty in the US has great difficulty imagining they will still be the same person in six months, let alone 20 years. More than a third of them can't pass the tests used to see if fifth graders are learning to project long term consequences as far as the month level. A t least half typically have little to no ability to empathize with anyone not very like them in race, gender, age, and even accent. By some studies, up to 60% of them have a mental health history involving incidents of psychosis. By others, over half were abusing a psychoactive drug at the time of the offense.
                If you want to deter them with the death penalty, you need the time from the actual comission of a crime to execution, to be less than two weeks, with all appeals. You need to show them somebody sufficiently like them being executed, within two weeks of the time they consider a death penalty crime of their own, and what you show them needs to be substantially for the same crime, as in, they won't shoot the clerk at the all night gas station, if they have seen a man who looks like them shoot a victim who looks like that clerk,in a similar setting, at night, for similar reasons, and then be given the death penalty for it. Show them a realistic dramatization of the crime and follow it immediately with showing the actual execution, and you have a good chance of deterring them from committing that particular style of crime for a few weeks to a few months. show them something with differences, including ones you probably think should make no difference, and that chance drops.
                  I don't really want to live in a nation where we have to televise 10 executions a week to cover all the possible combinations, and always sentence somebody within a week of the crime so that we have a week to squeeze in the appeals and actual execution. I don't think that's a workable deterrent. Considering that the time for deterrence basically is between the crime and the execution, not from arrest to execution, deterrence sounds like it just can't work with the typical subject.

A good starting source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/CunninghamDeathRowReview.pdf

        For the mental ability assessment and mental state portions, try starting about page 198.